e quarter were
tumbling in on the Goodwins. In fact, a great north-easterly sea was
breaking in thunder on the sands, and around and over the vessel. The
eight men on board her were therefore beset as if in a beleaguered
city, and as nothing but a lifeboat could live for a moment in that
tremendous surf, the crews of the Deal boats, astounded at the sight,
were simply helpless spectators of their comrades' danger, and torn
with distress and sympathy, as they saw them take to the rigging of the
vessel.

An hour before this pitch of distress had been reached, a galley punt
had gone to Deal for the lifeboat, and in the afternoon, about 3 p. m.,
the boat reached Deal beach with one hand on board. He jumped out, and
staggered up the beach to tell the coxswain of the lifeboat that eight
boatmen were on board the wreck, and that nothing but a lifeboat could
reach the vessel, as there was a dreadful sea all round her, and that
his own brother was among the number on board.

The Deal boatmen are not slow to render help when help is needed, and
indifference to the cry of distress is not one of their failings; but
when they heard of their own friends and neighbours, their comrades in
storm and in rescue and lifeboat work, thus beset and in imminent
peril, their eagerness was beyond the power of words to describe. From
the time the bell rang to 'man the lifeboat' to the moment she struck
the water only seven minutes passed!

A fresh south-west breeze brought her to the North Sand Head, and round
and outside it to the melancholy spot where, in the waning autumnal
light, they could just discern the wreck. They passed through the
crowd of Deal boats, and close to the tug-boat; but no one spoke or
hailed the other, as all knew what had to be done, and the nature of
the coming struggle.

The south-west breeze had now dropped completely, and they encountered,
as explained before, the strange phenomenon of a great windless swell
from the north-east, rolling in before the wind, which was evidently
behind it, and which indeed blew a gale next day, though it was now an
absolute calm. Great tumbling billows came in from different quarters,
and met and crossed each other in the most furious collision. There
was tossing about in the sea at the time an empty cask, which was
caught in the clash together of two such waves, and was shot clean out
of the water as high as the wrecked schooner's mast, or thirty feet
into the air, by the fo